Sunday, June 16, 2013

Pope Francis' homily at the Mass this morning is excellent - we have taken it from the Vatican web site and share with our readers here:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This
celebration has a very beautiful name: “Evangelium Vitae”, the Gospel of Life.
In this Eucharist, in the Year of Faith, let us thank the Lord for the gift of
life in all its forms, and at the same time let us proclaim the Gospel of Life.

On
the basis of the word of God which we have heard, I would like to offer you
three simple points of meditation for our faith: first, the Bible reveals to us
the Living God, the God who is life and the source of life; second, Jesus
Christ bestows life and the Holy Spirit maintains us in life; and third,
following God’s way leads to life, whereas following idols leads to death.

1. The first reading, taken from
the Second Book of Samuel, speaks to us of life and death. King David wants to
hide the act of adultery which he committed with the wife of Uriah the Hittite,
a soldier in his army. To do so, he gives the order that Uriah be placed on the
front lines and so be killed in battle. The Bible shows us the human drama in
all its reality: good and evil, passion, sin and its consequences. Whenever we
want to assert ourselves, when we become wrapped up in our own selfishness and
put ourselves in the place of God, we end up spawning death. King David’s
adultery is one example of this. Selfishness leads to lies, as we attempt to
deceive ourselves and those around us. But God cannot be deceived. We heard how
the prophet says to David: “Why have you done evil in the Lord’s sight? (cf. 2
Sam 12:9). The King is forced to face his deadly deeds; he recognizes them and
he begs forgiveness: “I have sinned against the Lord!” (v. 13). The God of
mercy, who desires life, then forgives David, restores him to life. The prophet
tells him: “The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die”.

What is the image we have of God?
Perhaps he appears to us as a severe judge, as someone who curtails our freedom
and the way we live our lives. But the Scriptures everywhere tell us that God
is the Living One, the one who bestows life and points the way to fullness of
life. I think of the beginning of the Book of Genesis: God fashions man out of
the dust of the earth; he breathes in his nostrils the breath of life, and man
becomes a living being (cf. 2:7).God is
the source of life; thanks to his breath, man has life. God’s breath sustains
the entire journey of our life on earth. I also think of the calling of Moses,
where the Lord says that he is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God
of Jacob, the God of the living. When he sends Moses to Pharaoh to set his
people free, he reveals his name: “I am who I am”, the God who enters into our
history, sets us free from slavery and death, and brings life to his people
because he is the Living One. I also think of the gift of the Ten Commandments:
a path God points out to us towards a life which is truly free and fulfilling.
The commandments are not a litany of prohibitions, but a great “Yes!”: a yes to
God, to Love, to life. Dear friends, our lives are fulfilled in God alone. He
is the Living One!

2. Today’s Gospel brings us
another step forward. Jesus allows a woman who was a sinner to approach him
during a meal in the house of a Pharisee, scandalizing those present. Not only
does he let the woman approach but he even forgives her sins, saying: “Her
sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven
little, loves little” (Lk 7:47). Jesus is the incarnation of the Living God,
the one who brings life amid deeds of death, sin, selfishness and
self-absorption. Jesus accepts, loves, uplifts, encourages, forgives, restores
the ability to walk, gives back life. Throughout the Gospels we see how Jesus
by his words and actions brings the transforming life of God. This was the
experience of the woman who anointed the feet of the Lord with ointment: she
felt understood, loved, and she responded by a gesture of love: she let herself
be touched by God’s mercy, she obtained forgiveness and she started a new life.

This
was also the experience of the Apostle Paul, as we heard in the second reading:
“The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). What is this life? It is God’s own
life. And who brings us this life? It is the Holy Spirit, the gift of the risen
Christ. The Spirit leads us into the divine life as true children of God, as
sons and daughters in the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Are we open to the
Holy Spirit? Do we let ourselves be guided by him? Christians are “spiritual”.
This does not mean that we are people who live “in the clouds”, far removed
from real life, as if it were some kind of mirage. No! The Christian is someone
who thinks and acts in everyday life according to God’s will, someone who
allows his or her life to be guided and nourished by the Holy Spirit, to be a
full life, a life worthy of true sons and daughters. And this entails realism
and fruitfulness. Those who let themselves be led by the Holy Spirit are
realists, they know how to survey and assess reality. They are also fruitful;
their lives bring new life to birth all around them.

3. God is the Living One; Jesus
brings us the life of God; the Holy Spirit gives and keeps us in our new life
as true sons and daughters of God. But all too often, people do not choose
life, they do not accept the “Gospel of Life” but let themselves be led by
ideologies and ways of thinking that block life, that do not respect life,
because they are dictated by selfishness, self-interest, profit, power and
pleasure, and not by love, by concern for the good of others. It is the eternal
dream of wanting to build the city of man without God, without God’s life and
love – a new Tower
of Babel. It is the idea
that rejecting God, the message of Christ, the Gospel of Life, will somehow
lead to freedom, to complete human fulfilment. As a result, the Living God is
replaced by fleeting human idols which offer the intoxication of a flash of
freedom, but in the end bring new forms of slavery and death. The wisdom of the
Psalmist says: “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Ps 19:8).

Dear
brothers and sisters, let us look to God as the God of Life, let us look to his
law, to the Gospel message, as the way to freedom and life. The Living God sets
us free! Let us say “Yes” to love and not selfishness. Let us say “Yes” to life
and not death. Let us say “Yes” to freedom and not enslavement to the many
idols of our time. In a word, let us say “Yes” to the God who is love, life and
freedom, and who never disappoints (cf. 1 Jn 4:8; Jn 11:2; Jn 8:32). Only faith
in the Living God saves us: in the God who in Jesus Christ has given us his own
life, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit has enabled us to live as true sons
and daughters of God. This faith brings us freedom and happiness. Let us ask
Mary, Mother of Life, to help us receive and bear constant witness to the
“Gospel of Life”.

I was deeply struck by the audacity of the woman in
today’s Gospel and found myself asking how did she come by such inner freedom?
What inner force made it possible for her to act so spontaneously and
uninhibitedly?

Perhaps I am way out, but I venture to say this was not
her first encounter with Jesus. This is not a chance meeting. She is
deliberately going to Simon’s house because Jesus is there and she brings
ointment with her because she knows what she wants to do when she gets there.
This woman knew who she was going to and was sure of the response she would
receive because she had already been a recipient of Jesus love and knew herself
to be loved and forgiven.She knew that
Jesus was aware of the purity and sincerity of her love for him. At some time
this woman of ill repute, very familiar with all that can masquerade as love
and it many caricatures, had recognised the real thing when she encountered it
in Jesus and it had changed her. Now she really is in love and knows herself to
be loved perhaps for the first time.

A woman whose self image was so poor that she allowed
herself to be used to gratify others is suddenly sure of herself and is
undaunted in the presence of men who belittle and despise her. This is the power
love has. When we know we are loved fear falls away. Instead her sole focus is
on Jesus. She has heard he is here at Simon’s house and she arrives complete
with ointment with only one thought in mind to minister to her beloved.With total disregard to how others would
react, this would be prostitute interrupts the all male gathering and proceeds
to kiss Jesus, wash his feet with her tears, dry them with her hair, and
massage the with ointment brought specially with her for that purpose. What has
wrought such a transformation? Jesus tells us himself: I tell you, he says to
Simon ‘her sins her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not
have shown such great love’. Nothing prompts a response of love like the
awareness of being forgiven. That is why great sinners often become great
saints.

Simon and his companions look on and judge: judge her
and judge Jesus. In both cases their judgement is erroneous. Jesus does know
what kind of a woman is before him, a repentant sinner who loves him very much.
He can read her in a glance as expected of a prophet, but as a true prophet his
vision is clear. He sees what actually is. He sees her present not her past.
All her gestures may have similarities to her past mode of activity but to
Jesus who sees the heart, they are an expression of pure love, a love so
overwhelming and so grateful that it needs must express itself extravagantly.

Jesus is utterly comfortable in the presence of such
love. He is not embarrassed by it. In fact when he speaks he supports the woman
and commends her actions, indicating that he prefers her demonstrativeness to
Simon’s propriety which he finds wanting.

Simon on the other hand, because he is blinded by her
past and who he thinks she is, is unable or unwilling to see her present. He is
wrong about her and perhaps because he is so focused on her and all that is
wrong with her, he fails in self-knowledge and Jesus has to confront him with
his own behaviour, making him see what his actions are revealing about himself.
He had in fact shown very little love and his omissions were supplied by this
very woman whom he was condemning.

Jesus turns to the woman and just as her sins have
been matter for public knowledge, so now he makes her forgiveness public. What
she already knows, he makes known to others, leaving no doubt about her
standing in his eyes.

I ask myself

Do I really believe in the transforming power of
Jesus love for myself and others

Am I open to seeing that love changing others or
do I hold them to their past.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

·Year of Faith: World Day Celebrating Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life)

Bishops ask the faithful to offer their prayerful support at home and in the parishes of Ireland for an important initiative being led by Pope Francis this weekend in Rome which celebrates the sanctity of human life.

Evangelium vitae (The Gospel of Life) is an encyclical of Blessed Pope Paul John II, published on 25 March 1995, which expresses the teaching of the Catholic Church on the value and inviolability of human life. This weekend in the Vatican 15-16 June Pope Francis will celebrate the encyclical in a special event entitled, ‘Believing, May They Have Life’. This will be a key event for the Year of Faith which the Universal Church is celebrating during 2013. The chosen theme reflects the Church’s commitment to the promotion, respect, and dignity of human life.

This Saturday 15 June at 8.30pm (Rome time) a silent, candle-lit procession will be held along Rome’s Via della Conciliazone in order to call attention to the theme of human life and its intangible value. It will be supported by pro-life people from around the world and the procession will conclude in Saint Peter’s Square. The following morning Pope Francis will preside at Sunday Mass at 10.30am with the entire ‘people of life’ to address his message and to show his care.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Then on the 24th of May Fr Viktor Hoffstetter OP came to preach our annual 8-day Retreat. Immediately after that Sr Barbara Beaumond OP came to give us a week of lectures on the history of the first Dominican Nuns. Below are some photos from our Community celebration with Fr Viktor and Sr Barbara on Corpus Christi Sunday:

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Our Dominican brothers have prepared a very good series of talks on the Creed. They are well worth watching.

This first talk gives a brief history of the Creed.

This second talks looks at the first article of the creed: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty".

This third talk looks at God as "maker of heaven and earth".

This fourth talk looks at the article on Christ: "I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father."

Monday, June 3, 2013

It seems strange to put those words together: to speak of welcome and
loneliness almost in the same breath.JESUS in the midst of it all.

And so, what can it mean?

Loneliness is a peculiar ‘friend’ – always somewhere on the horizon and
sometimes much more nearly present to us.Whenwe are small we can be too
busy learning and growing to be conscious of it.But then life begins to settle down … into
‘maturity’ and we discover that we are a mystery to ourselves; that we
misunderstand and are in turn misunderstood, and thus we are exposed to this
loneliness – never far away and often too too close to bear.

JESUS.Yesterday was the feast of
the Body and Blood of JESUS.The Feast
of thanksgiving to our bounteous Father and His co-eternal Son, for leaving us
this gift.Strange that it should call
to mind welcome and loneliness.JESUS
gives Himself to us in a lonely place.He welcomes us here to loneliness.Seems strange … what is it that He wants us to see?

In St Matthew’s Gospel, while on the Cross, we read that JESUS ‘yielded
up his spirit:’ in the loneliness of the Cross, having surrendered everything
to the Father in love, He even had to give up, surrender His very breath, the
Holy Spirit – so that it might be ours.

We are never alone.Loneliness
after all is a divine gift that we are invited to welcome.What happens when we cannot?It seems as though the consequences are
potentially destructive.By denying or
trying to run away from this reality, I cut myself off from others; I become
isolated; I become the centre of my own existence and there ceases to be any
space in me to welcome others; my thoughts torment me and deceive me into
believing that nobody knows me, nobody cares, nobody understands.What happens?I persuade myself that nobody experiences this emptiness that is at the
core of my being .. this is a lonely place .. and now … I have become alone in
it. I cannot face the loneliness, cannot accept it, but .. neither can I fill
it – no matter how hard I try.

But JESUS wants us to see that here in this ‘lonely place’ He has
preceded us; it is a place where He is … waiting to feed us with His very flesh
and blood … welcoming us to be here.We
are not alone.There is One who knows us
intimately; knows how fearful a place this is, because we cannot see Him. …
But.… is it a fearful place?Maybe after all, … it is a place of purity –
a place of truth.If JESUS is already
there before us, waiting there to welcome us … and JESUS is Love … then this
‘lonely place’ is a place of love … and unconditional acceptance.

The feast of the Body and Blood of JESUS:JESUS is our very life: it cost Him His own
life and breath that you might truly and freely live; truly and freely
love.Do not be afraid.Every time you come to Him to receive the
gift of His life and His love in the Eucharist – then: every time .. He reaches
and touches that loneliness within you, gently speaking to your heart:

‘I know you;

I love you;

Let me walk with you;

I am only longing to show you the way;

My precious, most beloved child …

Do not be afraid.’

St Thomas wrote of this Blessed Sacrament that ‘it was
the greatest of the miracles he worked; and he left it as a unique consolation
to those who were desolate at his departure.’Remember in your moments of loneliness and desolation to come to Him
here, and feast on His life, who is our strength and our song.

Vocation Weekends

Whom do you seek?

We seek God, Who alone gives meaning to our lives. Communion with Christ and with one another in love, through a life of prayer centred on Jesus, the Word of God and on the Eucharist, is the focus of our community life.

Single young women attracted to this way of life are welcome to contact us and we will arrange for a visit or some days in our retreat house - either at weekend or during the week. If a few are interested at same time, and if agreeable to all, we can also arrange for a group to spend a few days together.